


Exiled

by doctorate_in_realology



Series: Recall Alt-Take [1]
Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Anger, Angst, Because at this point in Recall they hadn't gotten together yet so they're like right there, F/F, It's like an implied mutal yet unsaid thing between 'em, Post-Fall of Overwatch, Sorta kinda Widowtracer
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-10
Updated: 2016-12-10
Packaged: 2018-09-07 15:21:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,043
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8806030
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/doctorate_in_realology/pseuds/doctorate_in_realology
Summary: An alternate take on part of my Recall story wherein Talon assaults Watchpoint: London a short time after Tracer brings Amélie to Overwatch, for which some blame Amélie. Tracer staunchly defends her. This is to be considered chapter 1 of the Recall Alternate Take story.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Are you ready for Tracer to get mad pissed because Tracer's about to get mad pissed
> 
> I've been mulling this idea around for a few days now and finally sat down and wrote it out. Feedback, as always, is greatly appreciated, so throw some my way if you've got it! And, as always (again), enjoy!

Watchpoint: London lay in ruin.

Bodies and debris alike littered the floor, blanketed in concrete and steel dust. Exposed wires twitched and hung from the ceiling, sparks spewing from their maws onto the floor below. The dust had not yet settled, though the fight was over.

Lena’s eyes flickered open. She found great difficulty in trying to process what lay before her—was everything stuck to the wall? No, no, that didn’t make sense.

It took perhaps a little too long for her to realize she was prostrate. She shifted to lift herself from the floor. Her hands pushed hard against the ground, dust and bits of cement digging into her palms.

The few inches of progress she’d made were lost as she was forced against the floor again. Why couldn’t she stand?

She found the answer to her question when she felt a slab of concrete lift from her back, accompanied by a groan of exertion. Cold hands clasped her shoulder and rolled her face-up.

“Lena?”

The voice that spoke her name sounded distant, muffled, obfuscated by the assault’s miring aftermath. She felt herself being shaken, felt open palms slap her shoulders and arms to dust off flakes of steel and dried blood that was not her own.

“Lena!”

She blinked hard; a figure—blurred, but tangible—hunched over her. Brilliant yellow eyes cut through the haze like a sabre. She tried once again to blink away the ache behind her eyes and at the base of her skull, and everything came into focus.

A low, gritty groan hummed in her throat. Amélie stood over her, eyes flicking between hers.

“Lena, are you alright?”

Another groan, and a grimace as she stood. “Yeah… Yeah, I’m good. You?”

Amélie nodded. Lena scanned the room around them; it looked as if a hurricane had ripped through the place.

She turned back to Amélie. “How about the others? Are they okay? Where are they?”

“Scattered, right now,” Amélie said. “Combing the base for any more soldiers.” Her gaze jumped once, and then twice to Lena’s forehead; blood dripped from a gash above her left eye.

“You’re bleeding.”

Lena lifted her hand to the spot in question. It stung as she touched it, no doubt leavened with dust and dirt.

She shrugged nonchalantly despite it, grinning as she did. “You should see the other guy.”

The steel door leading to the cafeteria and living quarters flew from its fixtures, slamming into the floor with a deafening _crunch_. A Talon mercenary had been kicked into it; he flew past the now-supine door and skidded to a halt three metres away, surely dead.

Reinhardt ducked through the doorway after him. Crimson rivulets painted nets down his left arm, and his shirtsleeve was soaked through with blood. Not that he paid it any mind, of course—Lena wondered if he even felt any wounds he sustained.

He turned from the lifeless man to Amélie and Lena. He started towards them with worried strides.

“Are you two well? You seem to have seen better days.”

Lena scoffed. “Better’n that guy, that’s for sure.” She pointed to the soldier Reinhardt had dashed across the room.

He laughed. “I should hope so. Come, let us find the others.”

The three of them wandered the base, mindful of any remaining Talon soldiers that may yet lurk. They formed a search party, which grew until their numbers were whole again, thankfully; some wounds, some more vicious than others, but nothing that could not be seen to. No Overwatch agent lost their life that day. The same could not be said of Talon’s forces, though, who were cut down to a man, their assault repelled.

Each of them had congregated in the war room once the smoke had cleared and everyone had regrouped. Lena and Amélie left to try and return the base to some semblance of cleanliness, starting with the atrium.

The door shut behind them, providing Jack the absence he needed to talk about what had been sitting at the forefront of his mind since the very moment a Talon soldier set foot through the door.

“We have a problem.”

“You don’t say?” McCree laughed.

Jack shot him a glare. “A more complicated problem, McCree; Widowmaker.”

“Amélie,” Reinhardt and Angela corrected in unison.

Jack shook his head and heaved a sigh. “What is gonna have to happen to make you people realize that _that_ is not Amélie? Amélie is _gone._ _Dead_.”

“They’re not two different people, Jack,” Angela said.

“Is that so? I suppose you think Amélie would have led Talon right to us too?”

“That’s what you think this is about?”

“Of course that’s what this is about. You mean to tell me you don’t find it even the least bit suspicious that just days after Widowmaker arrives here, Talon shows up knowing exactly where to find us? How do you think they knew?”

“I saw her fight back,” Reinhardt said. “Many of us did. She fought against Talon all the same as us.”

“She doesn’t have a _conscience_ , Reinhardt,” Jack responded. “She’d kill her own men without batting an eye if it meant she’d maintain her cover.”

“Why didn’t she turn against us then? Deliver the killing blow after Talon’s lackeys weakened us?”

“Because the odds are still in our favour,” Torbjörn interjected. “She’d not stand a chance against the twelve of us.”

Reinhardt shot Torbjörn a look as if he were disgusted with him—the same look he had given Jack upon the accusation.

“So what are we going to do then, hm?” Reinhardt went on, addressing the room. “Exile a possibly innocent woman based solely on conjecture? We are above this! At least let her present a defense for herself!”

“How about we take a vote?” Mei suggested. “All in favour of letting Amélie remain with us, raise your hand.”

Mei, Reinhardt, Angela, Lúcio and Genji raised hands in the air.

“All opposed?”

The rest raised theirs. Some more reluctantly than others, but they raised them one and all.

Six-to-five. So it was.

Reinhardt scrutinized them all with uncharacteristic vitriol. He was angry with them. He was disappointed.

“I will have _no_ part in this.”

He left the room in unvoiced fury. The others followed him, similarly disturbed.

All that was left to do was confront Amélie.

And Lena with her.

 

*******

 

Overwatch—sans Angela, Reinhardt, Lúcio, Genji and Mei—entered the atrium to the sight of Amélie and Lena dragging bodies to one side of the room and debris to the other. Lena dropped a corpse aside numerous others with a comical “eugh”, and clapped dust from her palms.

“So, where we off to next?” she asked, bending down to drag another body across the room. “Don’t s’pose we got another underground base the UN doesn’t know about, eh Winston?”

Winston remained silent. He refused to look at her, choosing instead to affix his gaze to the floor in shame.

Lena cocked her head, growing wary. “What’s wrong, big guy?”

“Amélie’s not coming with us,” Jack answered for them.

Amélie turned to them in a flash. Lena looked to her, then to them, then to her and back again.

“What? What do you mean she’s not coming with us?”

“Who do you think led Talon here, Tracer?”

“I was as surprised to see Talon here as you were,” Amélie said.

“And we’re to take your word for that?” Torbjörn fired back.

Lena took a step forward, bewilderment in her voice. “Yes, and you’ll take mine for it too! Amélie wouldn’t do that!”

“This is ridiculous, Tracer—”

“No, I’ll tell you what’s bloody ridiculous!” She was livid, now. “You want to ostracize an innocent woman on assumption alone?! _That’s_ ridiculous! You don’t even know that she did it!”

“And _you_ don’t know that she didn’t!” Jack shouted.

“Yes, I do, because I trust Amélie. I trust her the same as I trust _any_ of you.” She swept a castigatory finger across the group. “Why can’t you give her a chance?!”

“We did, and look where it got us. Some of us almost died today, but you’re ignoring that because you’re blinded by your emotions.”

That was a mistake.

Lena’s face contorted into an expression of such contempt and revulsion that it was a shock that Jack didn’t flinch under the weight of its gaze.

“‘Blinded by my emotions’? What do you think I am, some hopelessly-smitten doughy-eyed teenager?!” In truth, even she condemned herself from time to time for her feelings; she had fallen head over heels for Amélie once before, long ago, though she’d never admit it. “Don’t you _dare_ try and deflect this utter shite onto me!”

She took wide steps towards the group. “You’re Overwatch. We’re Overwatch. We’re supposed to help people, not turn them away at the first inkling of suspicion. Open your eyes, for god’s sake!”

“No, Oxton, you open yours!” Jack fired back. “The second we let our guard down, we’ll be dead!

He began walking towards Amélie, glaring her down. “This woman is a war criminal. An assassin. A double agent. She's an emotionless weapon that Talon is _using_ —”

Jack was but feet from Amélie—who, to her credit, didn’t move a muscle—when Lena stood in front of him. She stopped him cold.

She stared deep into his eyes, defiance in her own, and hissed venom at him.

“I’m _warning_ you, Jack.”

Jack met her measure with the same defiance. He opened his mouth to spit back, but Amélie took the chance from him.

“I can’t stay, Lena.”

Lena whipped around at that, forgetting completely about Jack and the others. “What?”

“I can’t stay… As much as I’d like to, I can’t.”

Lena shook her head, eyes growing misty. “Why?”

“It’s too dangerous.” Pain hitched in Amélie’s throat. “For you, and for everyone. Talon will not stop until they’ve hunted me down and killed me like a dog. Me staying among you puts you in that same danger and I will not stand for that.”

“Am, we put our lives on the line every day. If Talon wants to come, let ‘em—we’ll protect you.”

Amélie looked to the group behind Lena. “Will you?”

Lena looked to them as well—disgusted—and turned back, taking a step forward and putting an open palm to her chest. “I will.”

Amélie shook her head, gaze falling to the dusty concrete. “What you’ve done for me... It's something I can never even hope to repay. You gave me the chance that let me take my life into my own hands, and I can’t thank you enough for that. Which is why I will not put you in danger for my sake. I have to leave.”

“Let me come with you,” Lena pleaded, not taking even a moment to think about it before the words flew from her mouth.

Amélie shook her head once more. She enveloped Lena in a sad and languid embrace. Parting from her, she put a hand to her cheek.

“Thank you, Lena. For everything you’ve done. Take care of yourself.”

Amélie left the room without another word.

Lena stood as silent as she ever had, as still as she’d ever been.

Not a person in the room uttered a word as she turned to them. She stared daggers and Winston, at Fareeha, at Jesse, at Hana—how could they let this happen? How could they agree to this? Jack and Torbjörn she could understand—as much as one could understand such an evil thing—as they had always been rather ornery, but the others?

Unthinkable.

“Winston… You agreed to this?”

He shut his eyes closed, as tightly as he could, as if to fight back a tide of shame with eyelids alone.

Lena shook in anger and disbelief. Tears now fell from her eyes, and her voice cracked and rasped and echoed as she screamed fire at them all.

“She needed our help! All she wanted was a chance! And you couldn’t _fucking give it to her!_ ” She jabbed a finger behind her at the door of the atrium. “ _She is a human being!”_

She all but flew to the door Reinhardt had broken down. She turned around to hiss a final condemnation.

“I don’t know who you people are anymore.”

**Author's Note:**

> I'm not sure if I'll explore this idea any further, but I really liked it, so I just might. Let me know what you think!
> 
> UPDATE DEC 11 2016: I will in fact be continuing this at some point because you guys are way hyped about it and I LOVE THAT, and I love YOU. Stay tuned my little bastards


End file.
